Remember, on some ships sailed to far India Columbus?For the first time he heard the name of sailboats, involuntarily exclaimed: "How romantic!And what is the caravel? "In fact, the name of the medieval craft has a very melodic sound, and apparently they are very beautiful.They are often decorated with wooden body richly carved and waving in the wind sails made them look like cruise boat.
Caravel Ship: The Story of the origin and etymology
There are many options to explain the origin of the word.According to one of them, the name of a Portuguese sailing roots and comes from the diminutive version of the word caravo (sailing boat).But the Italians believe that the ship caravel named so because of its beauty and elegance, and its name comes from the merger of two Italian words - cara (cute) and bella (pretty).And there is a version of the Greek origin, under which it comes from the word χαραβος (ksarabos).From it came the Latin carabus (wicker boat), and of the Russian word "ship".Of course, the Italian version - the most beautiful and quite close in meaning, because the caravel - it's actually a very beautiful ship.Nevertheless, historians tend to believe that the word has Greek roots it.
What caravels?
These ships were common in Western Europe in the 13-16 th centuries.Since those years, Spain and Portugal were considered to Largest maritime powers and the major geographical discoveries it belonged to them, they naturally possessed the most powerful and advanced fleets.The main part of the total number of ships of the Spanish fleet to the 15th century constituted court, which is called "caravel" (see the photo in the article).Therefore, we are all great discoveries seafarers associate it with them, although other marine sailboats - karakki - more often involved in long journeys of Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama, Magellan and others. Confess that on karakki you almost did not hear anything while caravels alwaysWe were at the hearing, and all thanks to its poetic name.Caravel!Beauty, do not say anything.They were a two- or three-masted vessels with a direct or oblique (Latin) rigged.For those who want to know in more detail what the caravel, we can add that they had a special type of shell plating.Thus, if other vessels adopted the so-called method of "overlap", then these sailboats board when plating fit tightly to each other.In addition, a distinctive feature of these ships was a certain ratio of length to width of the ship (4: 1) the presence of a single elevated deck and stern, through which it was possible to sail with a fair breeze.On the caravels, they were usually three masts and triangular sails were attached to the sloping reyam.
Among the fleet of Christopher Columbus ships were like "Niña" and "Pinta", but the majestic "Santa Maria" belongs to the new generation of sailing ships - karakki.In short, the caravel - a sailing boat, which thanks to its maneuverability, along with more sophisticated karakki managed to swim to the coast of Novaya Zemlya.These ships usually were poorly armed.The small size of the deck did not allow them to place the artillery gun.Therefore, the only protection for them were large muskets, which were placed at the stern.
Improvement caravels
Eventually caravels began to improve.They instead oblique sails were straight, and because of them the courts easier to manage with a fair wind.Kolumbovskaya "Pinta" belonged to a new generation of caravels, and she had a direct non-Latin sails, while at the "Niña" were triangular, as in classical models, which originally served as fishing purposes.
Columbus before crossing the Atlantic near the Azores has decided to replace the slanting sail on "Nine" straight.And it did.After all, if not this, then the caravel might not be able to reach the shores of America.It gradually came out of the sails of the Latin type of consumption.And if after that someone asked what the caravel, then no one would have said that this court with an oblique sailing gear.
Conclusion
The sources have many descriptions of these vessels, but there is almost no illustrations, which you can imagine what were caravels actually.Most of the paintings were done much later, when the sailing has long been out of use.However, extant image of caravel, made in Lisbon in 1520.Thanks to him, our understanding of this vessel becomes more complete.In the picture, two-masted caravel (pictured right) with an oblique sail.She is depicted in the retablo in St. tsverkvi. Avty.Here are some important were the vessel in Portugal in the Age of Discovery.
